


Nobody knows me but ghosts

by lacygrey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 17:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5792917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacygrey/pseuds/lacygrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape and the face he shows the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody knows me but ghosts

Ugliness can be a blessing: a natural disguise. If only he could believe it. Believe that he had not grown into the disdainful sneer he holds up against the world. The unbalanced line of his face, with his overly large nose and deep-set eyes, revealed early to him that most people look no further than the superficial. Today it’s an advantage to him for the role he must play.  
  
_Traitor! Murderer!_ Looking at his reflection can believe it himself. He had never taken a life before, but no one knows that and who would believe it. _Death eater!_ He has always inspired disgust if not fear. Did he have a choice? It became his choice to exude hostility. But did he really ever want to make pupils cower? And wasn't he now marked by his actions as surely as his arm had been marked by Lord Voldemort.  
  
One grows into one's whole appearance. His hair, lank as always, his robes an extension of that. Around him, he watches the greying of those his age who have survived, while his hair is as dark as ever, and his face as cold. They steal the light. He looks as others must view his soul. Did Albus see that? And what did Lily see finally? Not someone not to be admired for his strength, as Snape had hoped, but someone to be feared?  
  
His skin, neither young nor old, is apparently neglected, although it wouldn't do now to show himself as unkempt before the Dark Lord and his ‘court’. Snape is their darling now, an object of envy even. More than ever, he should watch his back.  
  
He had done the unthinkable, and lives with the image of Albus forever falling scorched into his memory and the taste of the unforgivable on his tongue. It was what they planned. He is both hero and traitor now.  
  
There is no one left to guide or help him. Albus, like Lily, has gone on ahead. Potter has his comrades, the scattered members of the Order too, but no one who _knows_ either. It is a bitter irony that finally he will probably die by Potter's hand, but only if the world is lucky. This mask he fashioned and has and grown into he will wear until his dying day. No one sees beyond it and sometimes he wonders if there is still something left behind.  



End file.
